


Growing Pains

by molegria (robotunicorncastiel)



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: F/M, Frohana, Gen, Humor, Ice Bros - Freeform, Male-Female Friendship, OC has fire powers, Post-Canon, Post-Frozen (2013), Romance, Sequel, Sister-Sister Relationship, Uterine Woes, canonverse, snow sisters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2018-10-24 09:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10738677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotunicorncastiel/pseuds/molegria
Summary: Being queen is no easy task, and Elsa's job is further complicated by weather changes, her sister's broken heart and her powers acting up - again. When the royal family of an important trade partner comes to Arendelle seeking her aid, will she be able to meet their expectations?





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Squick warning: non-graphic mentions of menstruation and related symptoms.

_The princess woke up with a startle. Looking around, she soon came to realize she was no longer in the safe surroundings of her palace: under the darkness of the wee hours of day, she could only take in the ornate glass lamps, the tall domed ceiling, the sheer curtains that hung from the four-poster bed. The wind was singing foreign songs outside her closed windows. Keeping as quiet as being alive allowed her, she was able to notice another sound: beside her on the bed, her abductor snored lightly, almost imperceptibly._

_The veil of sleep made him look peaceful, almost childlike in innocence. She took the chance to observe his face with more care, now that she was not overcome with panic and fear of him. Freed from his turban, his mass of soft black hair was tousled over the pillows, and she resisted the temptation of smoothing them. The light from the lamps danced over his tanned skin, his long eyelashes casting shadows over his high cheekbones. His aquiline nose, which on the previous day she had found repugnant, now seemed a dignified anchor for the whole of his features. His plump, red lips were slightly parted as he breathed, and she spent a moment gazing at them with a longing she had never known before._

_Flushed with desire and curiosity, she let her eyes roam further, over his long neck and broad shoulders, sliding down his exposed torso. She craved to discover the story behind the large, thick scar over his right ribs. Her fingers hovered over it briefly, tentatively; but his breathing hitched for the shortest moment, and she pulled back her hand against her bosom, ashamed. Her gaze, however, could not be deterred, and as she ascertained that he continued to sleep, her investigations proceeded, taking note of the freckles around his taut nipples, the well-defined muscles in his abdomen and the trail of dark hairs that led from his navel to--_

"Anna? May I come in?"

 

Anna slammed the book, cheeks hot as if she had been caught in the most pernicious of acts; then, cursing under her breath, she opened it again and tried to find the page she had been reading before her sister had rudely interrupted her. "Come in, come in," she said to the door, hastily placing her bookmark on a random page.

 

Elsa came into her room armed with a smile and a tray of tea and bonbons, and Anna immediately forgave her for any wrongdoing. "Feeling better? You do look healthier than when I left. Your cheeks even have a bit of color in them." She placed the tray on Anna's bedside table.

 

"Oh, yes, Gerda's tea makes miracles," Anna said, fully aware that Gerda's tea had nothing on her literature of choice when it came to bringing color to her face. She reached for the cup, anyway; the drink did help her cramps more than the book. "How was the fair?"

 

"Nice. Lively," and the way Elsa said it made the word sound like a terrible thing for a street fair to be, but she smiled nonetheless. "You would have loved it. Such a shame that you were indisposed today."

 

Anna nodded, enjoying the warmth of the cup between her hands and against her belly. She knew her sister didn't like going to public events without her, and not because she enjoyed Anna's company that much - well, she did, or at least Anna hoped she did, but crowds were... not Elsa's thing. She would wave and smile through it all like the good queen that she was trained to be, but once she was back to the safety of their quarters she would crumble down, exhausted. Anna was quite her opposite in that sense; talking to people made her feel energized and bouncy. Except, of course, when she was already ill.

 

"Just my luck that the first fair of the year would fall on one of my bad days," she sighed, taking a sip from Gerda's tea. The maid had added more honey this time, but it was still horribly bitter. Still, it was better than the pain.

 

Anna was not prone to being jealous of her sister, but this was one exception: apparently, Elsa had not inherited their mother's heavy cycles and cramps. Her monthly events came and went without much fanfare, while Anna had to spend at least the first day of hers bed-ridden with pain and malaise. In hindsight, maybe nature had been wise: if Elsa's powers had caused so much trouble as it was, Anna didn't like to imagine what it would have been like if she had to deal with swelling and migraines every 28 days.

 

To make matters worse, ever since the previous summer - since her failed engagement, followed by her new romantic arrangements - she had noticed Gerda seemed visibly _relieved_  every time she brought the princess her medicinal tea. (And so did Anna, even if she would never admit it. Even if it was completely illogical and unreasonable to worry. Because it _was_ absolutely illogical and unreasonable to worry.)

 

"So, what are you reading?" Anna had no time to let go of her cup and make the book disappear before Elsa had taken it from her lap. " _The Tales of Princess Lyudmila in The Courts of Agrabah_?"

 

"Uh, it's a romance? It's not your thing," she said hurriedly, hoping it would discourage her sister from opening the book.

 

Elsa opened the book on the bookmarked page and began to read in silence, her eyebrows rising and her face growing redder by the second. Anna placed her cup on the table and shuffled in bed to read over her shoulder.

 

The chapter was titled " _The debauchery at the baths_ ", and it was illustrated.

 

"I haven't got to that part yet," Anna added sheepishly.

 

"That," Elsa cleaned her throat, closing the book, "is certainly not an accurate description of Agrabah, nor an appropriate reading for an unmarried lady." But she handed the book back to Anna, even if she hesitated a bit at first. And then, with a smug look that didn't fit her regal demeanor at all: "I wonder what your mountain man thinks about your choice of entertainment."

 

Anna scoffed, dropping the book next to her pillow. She hadn't been looking forward to that change of subject. " _My_  mountain man? The one who has been holed up in who-knows-where since, oh, November? Who didn't come home for Christmas? The one who hasn't sent me a single word in _three weeks_? _That_ mountain man?"

 

Elsa seemed concerned. Oh, well. Now that, too. "Well... it's the high season for ice harvesting. It's a demanding job, and ice exports have grown exponentially over the last few years. They have to stock the ice houses as best as they can, before it becomes too thin to provide good blocks, or else they won't be able to meet the summer demand. And trolls don't observe Christian holidays, so that wasn't part of Kristoff's life growing up. Many ice harvesters don't stop for Christmas, either."

 

"Yeah, thank you for the excuses. I'll try to believe them," Anna huffed.

 

"I know your mood swings, and this doesn't look like one." Elsa held her hand, and Anna felt bad for her. Her sister was visibly tired, and yet here she was listening to her drama. "What's wrong?"

 

"It's just..." She sighed. "The last time I saw him, he seemed so... I wouldn't say 'cold', he was nice enough, just... distracted? As if he had something on his mind all the time. Sometimes he seemed about to tell me something, but then he just smiled and talked about the weather."

 

"It could be something completely unrelated to the two of you," Elsa said, trying to soothe her worries. "Maybe one of the trolls is sick, or he's worried about work."

 

"I don't know. And that's part of the problem. You'd think at the rate things were going, we were intimate enough for him to trust me."

 

And then Anna saw Elsa's little smile vanish. She let go of Anna's hand, straightened her back and looked at Anna from head to... she would say "toe", but she was sitting in bed, so it was more like from head to hips. Which just seemed to make everything worse.

 

"By 'intimate enough' you do mean in the intellectual sense, I hope." Elsa was using her Queen voice on her, which was much worse than her Big Sister voice, worse even than her Our Mom Died So I'm Your Mom Now voice. (All these voices were recent developments. Growing up, she had only known Elsa's Go Away voice, which was still the worst of them all.)

 

Anna tried to look at anything but Elsa's eyes. She finally settled for the fireplace. "Uh, I mean it in the intellectual sense _as well_ \--"

 

" _Anna!_ " Ok, that was the Mom voice. A shocked version of it, which wasn't much better than the Queen voice, but still, it was something. "Anna, please tell me you haven't done-- you haven't _let him_ \--"

 

"We didn't do anything _serious_! I promise my virtue is intact," she rushed to explain, pleading for calm. "We just... did a little more than kissing. Silly things. Nothing that a respectable couple wouldn't do. It's Kristoff who's probably making a big deal out of it and now he's running away from me because he's a prude." She crossed her arms, unwavering under her sister's glare.

 

Elsa seemed to calm down. Slightly.

 

"Silly things, you say." She still sounded skeptical, but there was a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips, and Anna was holding on to it for dear life. "Like what?"

 

"Like. Things? Involving... body parts? That... aren't often seen by the general public? And..." She bit her tongue. Elsa was _holding back a laugh_. She was redder than Anna ever expected her to get, and probably still appalled at the thought of her little sister having inappropriate encounters with a man, but she was _giggling_. The rascal! "Wait, I don't have to _tell_ you! I'm not falling for that. Why the sudden interest in my love life, anyway?"

 

Elsa got up from where she was sitting on the bed and groaned. The poor thing could use a warm bath, Anna thought. "Well, for starters, it's way more interesting than mine." They both had to laugh at that. The queen's self-deprecating humor was such a rare sight, it had to be cherished.

 

"Which, by the way, is completely unfair." Anna stuffed a bonbon in her mouth. "You need to find yourfelf fomeone, Elfa, juft fo I can torment you about it af well."

 

"I will think about it once I'm out of this corset," Elsa conceded, standing by the door. "Don't stay up too late reading that wretched book," she added on her way out.

 

But Anna didn't plan on reading much more that night, anyway. She had devoured her previous romance in less than three days; this one she wanted to savor for as long as possible. Besides, Elsa was right about the harvesters. January was the zenith of winter, so Kristoff would probably be working long days until the end of February, with no days off to visit her. She'd have to keep herself entertained until then.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know ice harvesting was an actual big business in Norway between the mid-1800's and early 1900's, before fridges were a thing? I had no idea.

Too fast, too soon, with too little effort, the tip of the auger crossed the ice sheet and reached the water below.

 

This was not good.

 

"Yup. Not good," Old Jan shouted from the river margin, echoing Kristoff's thoughts. "How much?"

 

Kristoff pulled out the auger and threw it to the side while the new kid, Sven (of course the new kid was a Sven), crouched beside him and stuck the ruler in the hole.

 

"Six," said Sven-the-kid, and the rest of the group at the margin groaned. "B-but six is good, no?"

 

"Maybe for your iced tea, son, but not for international trade," answered Old Jan, waving at them to get out of the river. "Even the best ice houses have losses. Big cakes, small losses. Small cakes, you'll be opening the door in May and finding a puddle."

 

Sven-the-kid was too young to remember how it was in the old days, Kristoff thought, immediately feeling much older than his own 22 years of age. He remembered how ice houses were before their current improvements, the rush to sell it all before the peak of summer destroyed most of their hard work. When he started earning money from ice, back when he was even younger than Sven-the-kid, it had been in small jobs - people of means hiring hands to harvest private lakes and stock up small houses and ice boxes. For that kind of work, six inches of ice was enough; the whole enterprise was much humbler, with maybe two or three men and a horse - sometimes he'd do the job himself, with just the help of Sven (the reindeer) to pull the plows and the ice-filled sleigh.

 

But business grew, and Arendelle was exporting more and more, its large ships crossing the seas to deliver their ice to warmer countries and using ice to keep their fish intact on their way to foreign destinations. Sure, the smaller gigs were still hiring, but these came and went, and paid very little. Industry demanded large teams, with larger equipment, and so the ice sheets had to be thick enough to support several men and horses on top of them. They had been lucky over the last few winters - the previous year had gifted them with several runs, sometimes yielding 15-inch ice cakes; the largest ice house in the area had had to be expanded. Said house wasn't even half-filled now.

 

Kristoff pulled down his face warmer and let out a puff of condensed air, then picked up the auger and pointed it towards the river spring. "Let's move upstream. Maybe there it will..."

 

"Upstream, downstream, the whole river will be too thin. I'd bet eight inches, tops," said Old Jan, shrugging.

 

"It was thicker there yesterday."

 

"It was thicker _here_ yesterday," the older man insisted. "It's no use, boy. I've been doing this since before you were born, you know this."

 

Old Jan was past his fifties, which, as his nickname implied, was quite old for an active ice harvester. Kristoff had very early memories of him, back when he was just a kid with a habit of running away from orphanages to follow the ice crews around like a puppy. Old Jan remembered him from that time, too - even if it had taken him a while to connect the little boy who vanished into a cold winter night and was presumed dead, and the quiet but brazen teenager who showed up on his doorstep years later, looking for work. Kristoff tried not to hold a grudge against him and the other harvesters for leaving him behind (he had never been their responsibility, after all), but still, Old Jan' chubby, fatherly affection had never quite broken Kristoff's shell.

 

He stood alone in the frozen river, looking at the group on the margin. Except for Old Jan, who managed to stay good-humored even through snowstorms, and the wide-eyed and lost Sven-the-kid, all the other ten or so men in the operation were giving him stares that ranged from boredom to outright contempt, waiting for him to say something. As if the lack of ice was his fault, as if he had any power over water, winter, nature.

 

The silver snowflake badge weighed heavily inside his coat pocket.

 

"We'll try again tomorrow." Tomorrow was still a long way from now, he thought, looking at the dark sky. The days were still too short in January, and all of them were sleeping too little, kept awake by their personal woes.

 

"That's what you said yesterday," complained one of the more ill-humored recruits, whose name Kristoff had yet to memorize - it started with O, but he kept thinking of Olaf and it wasn't Olaf.

 

"And I'm saying it again." He walked to the margin with some difficulty, the pointy cleats under his shoes scratching over the slippery ice layer. "It's still early in the season. There's time. We have time."

 

"Speak for yourself. My last decent meal was _Christmas_."

 

"Forget it, Oskar, he doesn't care," said Johan, a bald, rugged fellow who seemed to have a personal beef with Kristoff. ( _Oskar_. The other guy was Oskar.) "It won't affect him."

 

"What? It affects me like everybody else."

 

"Does it?" Johan raised his eyebrows, walking around the group towards him. Kristoff squared his shoulders. "Tell us, Thor - how far's your wife?"

 

Thor was a blonde, large, very miserable-looking middle-aged man. "Seven months."

 

Johan whistled. "That's pretty far. Must be scary. How about your folks, Bjorn? Still with the bad lungs?" Bjorn was in his late teens and not quite fit for ice work, but he needed the job to help his ailing parents. "Soren, the house? Still paying? I thought so. We're all in the same boat. Now, this guy?" Johan was right in front of Kristoff, now. He was almost one head shorter than Kristoff, but it didn't stop him from growling at the younger man with barely-concealed rage. "He gets but a scratch on his sleigh, his _regular_ buys him a new one."

 

Kristoff grabbed the man by the collar of his heavy coat and lifted him off the floor. "One more word and I'll solve your problems for good," he hissed, colder than the winter morning.

 

Old Jan ran to them while the others just watched, like a pack of wolves waiting for an easy prey. "Kristoff, put him down, for God's sake!" He dropped Johan without any care. The man stumbled a bit, then adjusted his collar once he found his footing again. "Good. You come here. And you, not another word," said Old Jan, pointing at the group of workers and pulling Kristoff aside, talking to him in hushed tones. "Ok, that's it. I've had enough. You're fetching the Queen."

 

"She's the _Queen_. I don't _fetch_  anyone, much less the Queen."

 

"Well, she named you _Ice Master_  for a reason." Kristoff flinched briefly; the old man had gone straight for the jugular. "I mean it, Kristoff. We're on the verge of an ice famine here. If this is not fixed before February rolls in, we're doomed. All of us. And this is something she can fix."

 

Kristoff spared another glance at the group that was - supposedly, hypothetically - under his command. They were talking among themselves, avoiding looking in his direction. He gave a curt nod to Old Jan and pulled the face warmer over his mouth and nose without another word.

 

_Never thought we'd miss the old days, right, buddy_ , he thought as he scratched Sven-the-reindeer's neck and released the straps that bound the animal to the sleigh. His new sleigh, the one Anna had given him in summer as compensation for the night she turned his life upside down. His thoughts drifted to another night, late in September - to Anna in this sleigh, to them stopping beside a deserted road and letting hands roam over unexplored territories; then his mind jumped to a sunny October afternoon, when the two if them hid in the castle stables and went even further with their investigations - the day he realized he would have to do something about them, and soon.

 

An annoyed nuzzle from Sven broke him out of his reverie, and Kristoff sighed and shook his head, mounting on the reindeer's back. Maybe if he rode fast enough, he might manage to find Elsa, discuss the ice situation and leave before Anna found him. Maybe she'd hate him for it, when she found out; maybe he'd later receive a letter from her, in official lettering and with the signature and stamp of Her Royal Highness, the Princess Anna of Arendelle, ordering him to keep his distance under penalty of arrest. 

 

_Maybe that would be for the best_ , he told himself, but it didn't sound convincing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and kudos! This chapter took me a while to post, sorry - life got in the way. :P
> 
> This one is in Elsa's POV, with a little bit of Kristanna mentioned in the end. A fair warning to the commenter who felt there was too much Elsa: I'm trying to keep chapters balanced between the tritagonists' POVs, so there will be quite a bit of our dear Snow Queen along the way (generally, her chapters will be more plot-heavy).

The sun was just peeking out of the horizon, yet the world was already in motion under her window. It had been a few days since the last heavy snowfall, and so the paths to the castle gates and the bridge to the main square were clear, despite the thick layers of snow covering the roofs and gardens. At the other end of the bridge, merchants were collecting the remnants of last night's winter fair, disassembling stalls and putting their goods away in carts and sleighs. The castle servants were also fully awake, coming and going with heavy crates of fish from the harbor and grains from the silos. She had started hiring more hands soon after the coronation; Gerda and Kai were wonderful, but they were getting older and, with the gates now opened and the expectation of balls and official functions, they would not have been able to bear the extra load without help.

 

The view was not that different from Elsa's old bedroom, three doors down the corridor, but after seven months it still felt not quite right. Looking out her window had been her main pastime growing up, and even the slight changes in angle and size were unsettling. Her parent's bedroom - _her_ bedroom now, she corrected herself - was right above the main gates, and the windows were much larger; there was even a small balcony. The room itself was three times as big as hers, and seemed even bigger now that it was sparsely furnished: the tall mirror and the dresser had stayed, just like an old, puffy armchair that a young Elsa had always coveted for herself, back when she was free to play in her parent's room. A small breakfast table and two chairs were brought in, and all the rest went out - all except for the bed, the enormous four-poster bed. Every night Elsa thought she might get lost in that bed, never to return to the surface.

 

(It had felt so wrong, the first few nights. Her sister and her had been _conceived_  on that bed. Their parents had been supposed to sleep on it for so many years more - they should have grown old on it. She still felt like a trespasser every night, as she closed her eyes to sleep.)

 

On the days before the coronation, when Gerda and the crown advisors had suggested a room change, she had vetoed it with conviction. Her old bedroom, with its blue walls and water-damaged furniture, had been her safe space, one of the few constants left in her life. Some might have called it a prison cell, but by staying there, she knew Anna and everyone else would be safe. And Elsa was an obedient girl. Her parents had ordered her to stay in that room, and that was not going to change after she became queen.

 

Except _everything_  changed when she became queen. That first night after the Thaw, for the first time in thirteen years, her bedroom had actually felt like a prison, a physical reminder of the crimes she had unwittingly committed. She ended up in Anna's room that night, crying compulsively on her bed as her sister rubbed her back and held her close. In that moment, Elsa realized she would never be able to go back to her old life. The doors were opened; she _had_ to walk out of them.

 

And here she was now, in that endless room, trying to walk in shoes that were too big for her.

 

Elsa turned away from the window. A large family portrait, painted when Anna was just a baby, hung in an otherwise empty stretch of wall. It was the only piece of decoration in the room; she had requested for it to stay. She had been too young on that day to remember it now, but she could almost feel the velvet of her mother's skirts under her fingers, her mother's gentle hand resting on her shoulder.

 

_I wish you were here with us right now_ , Elsa thought as she always did, looking at her father's calm, confident eyes.

 

"Good morning," Anna's voice, melodious and sleepy, brought Elsa back to reality. Her sister waltzed into the room still in her nightgown, hair looking like a bird's nest. She had probably only washed her face before coming because Gerda insisted.

 

"Good morning, little sis'," Elsa said, stepping away from the window. "How are you feeling?"

 

"Like I survived yet another attempt against my life perpetrated by my innards," Anna sighed dramatically. "And I'm starving." She threw her arms around Elsa and placed a lazy kiss on her cheek before sitting down at the breakfast table. Some things hadn't changed; Elsa still found it soothing to break her fast in her own room, instead of the drawing room downstairs. The only difference was that now Anna would often make an effort to get out of bed early enough to join her. "Oh, I dreamed you had a suitor."

 

"Really?" The Queen resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. Unlike her sister, who was apparently an avid reader of romance novels, Elsa didn't have the slightest interest in the subject. If one day she were able to overcome her abject fear of passing down her powers to a potential child, maybe then she would select an eligible prince or duke - one who didn't get too much on her nerves - and proceed with the formalities. It was not like she was short of options, as the growing pile of letters in her office could attest (some aimed at her, some at Anna, some written with such ambiguity they conveyed the idea that either sister would do). At the moment, however, this was very far from her mind. She had a kingdom to run. "What was he like?" She appeased her sister nonetheless, because she knew doing otherwise would only lengthen the discussion.

 

"I don't know, you just mentioned having one," Anna answered, spreading jam on a toast. "Oh, and we were trying to break ice. Like, literally - on a lake or something. And I was complaining because that was Kristoff's job, but he wasn't there to help. Can you believe this? Even in my _dreams_  he decides to go missing." She took out her frustration on the poor piece of toast, taking a bite that should have been too large for a princess' mouth. At least she had the decency of swallowing it before she resumed talking. "Men are insufferable and exist only to give us headaches. If you do meet a suitor these days, don't say I didn't warn you."

 

Elsa shook her head, smiling, and picked up the local newspaper from where she had left it, turning the page and folding the paper neatly in half. The first story on the new page caught her eye. "Speaking of headache-inducing men..." She scanned the text before deeming it worthy to be shown to Anna. "Guess who escaped his family's house arrest and broke into a local maiden's house." She turned the paper to her sister; the title said, ' _The Latest Mischief Of Southern Isles' Youngest Prince_ '.

 

"No!" Anna dropped the toast on her plate and took the paper, her eyes darting to the cartoon that illustrated the news. "Again?"

 

"It seems your former beau has found a talent for lock-picking." Elsa took a sip of coffee and enjoyed the varying levels of disgust and disbelief crossing her sister's face as she read briefly.

 

Anna threw the newspaper back to her and cleaned the tips of her fingers on a napkin, eyes narrowed. "I'm glad he found himself a hobby. Maybe now he will stop trying to usurp the neighbors' thrones."

 

Elsa went through the story again, more thoroughly this time. "Well, I doubt he will be able to secure a throne at all, if not by usurping it. Look at this: _'Rumors of the young prince's latest scandals have traveled as far as the East Indies, where they reached the ears of the local elite. The daughter of a prestigious raj, who had been approached by the crown of the Southern Isles in its attempts to send off Prince Hans, has been most distraught by the news, and she politely stated that, despite his fair looks (and dexterous fingers), she did not look forward to being betrothed to a man with such a crooked personality.'_ "

 

Anna's smile was the definition of _schadenfreude._ "Remind me to write a letter to this girl and make her my new best friend. After you, of course."

 

The sisters enjoyed a few moments eating in comfortable silence. Rather, Elsa's comfortable silence, and Anna's comfortable rambling about the day's activities, the current weather and the quality of the food. On their first few breakfasts together, Elsa had tried to keep up with her sister, but she only ended up exhausting herself before noon. They didn't take long to find their current rhythm, with Anna doing most of the talking and Elsa just listening to her. Anna didn't even seem to mind if her sister occasionally went back to the newspaper while she talked.

 

In any case, Elsa always noticed when Anna _stopped_  talking. Usually, like this time, it meant Gerda had come back into the room. She put down the paper and looked up at the maid, who was bringing in a tray of freshly-baked pastries. "Your Majesty, Kai asked me to inform you... Mr. Bjorgman has just arrived at the castle, and is requesting an audience with the queen."

 

"Oh, look at that. We just mentioned him a moment ago," Elsa patted her mouth with a napkin and raised her eyebrows at Anna, but her sister didn't return her smile.

 

"An _audience_. With the _queen_. But not with the princess?" Anna's emotions went from annoyance, to alertness, to full-on panic, then back to annoyance. "Does that mean he doesn't want to talk to me? Why does he want to talk to you and not to me? You two don't even talk, you just... communicate by nodding and smiling politely at each other, mostly."

 

"We talk when talking is _required_." This time Elsa made no effort to stop her eyes from rolling. Besides, it was just not true - she and the ice harvester had had full-length conversations about various topics (though they always seemed to cover Anna's inability to stay still, at some point). "And I'm sure he'll want to talk to you, but for that to happen you'll need to get dressed." Anna looked down at herself, seeming to have realized just now that she was still in her nightgown. She got up from the chair in a hurry, almost taking the whole table with her, and ran her hands over the mess of her hair. "I'll hold him back for you, so try not to look too desperate," Elsa added, pouring some more coffee for herself.

 

"Desperate? Who's desperate? Clearly not me," Anna answered, fingers twisted into a tangle of hair, and gave her sister a look that did not convey any calm. "I don't know what to wear. Gerda, save me."

 

Elsa laughed to herself as the maid hurried behind Anna and out of the bedroom. The Queen finished her coffee in the newfound silence; she picked one of the pastries from the tray, examining it then taking a tentative bite. Hmm. Chocolate-filled brioches.

 

So Kristoff wanted to talk to her, specifically. That morning she had a meeting scheduled with Ms. Voll, the treasurer of the crown, but if she didn't take too long getting dressed, she figured she could squeeze in a word with the ice harvester before the meeting, provided he didn't overextend himself. She knew the man was not prone to go on tangents, so she had that in her favor.

 

Unless, of course, the subject of this sudden, unscheduled need for an audience involved Anna. In that case she should expect some painful foot-shuffling, stuttering and having to pry information out of him with a corkscrew. Actually, now that she thought about it, the subject of Anna _was_ going to come up. After her sister's revelations the previous night, if Kristoff didn't bring it up, Elsa would have to do it herself.

 

She left the half-eaten brioche on her plate and got up, cleaning her fingers on a napkin as she went to the master bathroom, trying to remember which of her morning dresses was the easiest to put on.


	4. Chapter 4

Anna stole another glance at the clock that sat on the waiting room mantelpiece: twenty past eleven, it said, a whole half-hour since she arrived there. Which meant Elsa and Kristoff had been locked inside Elsa's study for at least that much, possibly longer. Which was not that absurd for Elsa's meetings, but for Kristoff? What could he have to talk about with her sister for this long?

 

She got up from her seat, her petticoats ruffling against each other like a thunderstorm in the otherwise silent room. The voices in the study were a quiet, distant buzz, muffled by the heavy panels of the door where Kai stood guard. But both Elsa and Kristoff had raised their tone at one point — a brief moment, and not enough for Anna to distinguish words, but it had happened. She hadn't imagined it, because in that moment she had looked at Kai, and Kai had looked at Ms. Voll, and Ms. Voll had looked at her. It hadn't taken longer than this exchange of glances, and then the two inside the office had fallen in absolute silence for maybe a whole minute.

 

If it wasn't for the presence of Ms. Voll, Anna would have worn a hole into the carpet by now. The crown treasurer had inherited the position from her late husband, and although she was meticulous in her work, her black clothes, hallow cheeks and small scrunched nose gave her the air of a disgruntled bat. Anna wasn't in her company often enough to dislike her, but she couldn't say she liked her, either. When the princess had entered the room, a little out of breath from running down the stairs and still finishing her braided pigtails, Ms. Voll had given her a long once-over with a frown, but mostly ignored her afterwards. Satisfied, perhaps, that Her Highness had chosen to wear morally and financially modest apparel.

 

Ms. Voll didn't need to know the less than modest things Anna had done in those clothes back when the weather was warmer. The moss-green velvet bodice, the black dress with colorful flowery needlework around the hem and the unbleached linen shirt underneath had been deliberate choices — she had worn them in a particularly memorable afternoon in October, and she knew Kristoff would remember them, even if the chilly winter morning had demanded extra socks, pantalettes, undershirts, and a large black shawl with fringes and embroidered red roses. The shawl had been a gift from a Spanish ambassador who, according to Elsa, was absolutely smitten by Anna — something she knew Kristoff knew. That had also been a deliberate choice.

 

She pretended to study her father's coronation portrait once again. Waiting was not one of her strongest skills. It was of little consolation that Ms. Voll was also impatient; her audience with the Queen was twenty minutes late — twenty-three now, in fact. _At least it's not_ **_your_** _boyfriend in there talking about who-knows-what with your sister_ , Anna thought. She was also pretty sure that, unlike her, Ms. Voll no longer had to deal with her uterus doing somersaults. Anna hadn't lied earlier when she'd told Elsa she was feeling better, but considering she had spent most of the previous day lying in a puddle of her own blood and unable to keep anything heavier than plain crackers in her stomach, today she _was_ better. Still with a throbbing migraine, a dull ache in her privates and the hunger of a hundred men, but better.

 

The click of a doorknob made her jump out of her skin. She turned quickly towards the entrance to the study, catching only the last tendrils of their conversation. "And please, think of what I told you. Kai, will you see Mr. Bjorgman to his room?"

 

Elsa opened the door fully, and Anna saw Kristoff for the first time in two whole months.

 

He looked... well, he looked like crap, but in a very handsome and masculine way. His hair had not seen a pair of scissors over those two months, and his bangs were long enough that he had to push them aside not to cover his eyes. Anna wasn't sure if the beard (so he could grow a full beard, who would have thought) was intentional or another sign that he was letting himself go, but it made him look less like a boy and more like the rough, troubled heroes of her romance novels, so she was all for it. But his ice harvesting garments seemed a bit looser around his thighs. Had he been eating properly?

 

"Please don't bother, I should be leaving..." He started to answer Elsa, but the words died in his mouth as soon as he set his eyes on Anna. "... right away."

 

Ok, him looking _dejected_  at the sight of her wasn't what she had been aiming for.

 

"Leaving so soon? But... you just got here." She let out a small, nervous laugh. Maybe he was just tired. Maybe he was just malnourished, and miserable, and tired.

 

His eyes darted around the room. "Yes. I... came here on duty. To report from the ice harvesters." He then realized he was wringing his woolen hat and made to put it back in his head. "They will be waiting for me to report back to them, so if you’ll excuse—"

 

"Well, I'm sure they can wait a few more minutes while Britta arranges some provisions for your journey," Elsa (brilliant, wonderful Elsa) interrupted him. She exchanged a look with Anna; was that... worry? Anger? Fear? Whatever it was, she covered it with an elegant, diplomatic smile as she pushed Kristoff out of the door. "As I am sure Princess Anna will not mind walking you to the kitchen. Right, Anna?"

 

It was a good thing Anna didn't mind: the Queen didn't wait for her answer before ushering Ms. Voll inside the study with a flurry of apologies and closing the door behind them. Anna smiled at Kristoff, who in turn sent Kai a pleading look. The servant answered him with a shrug and a patented smile of his own, one that conveyed the idea that "if you disturb even a single hair on our lovely Princess' head I will roast you on a stick".

 

Kristoff offered his arm to Anna with a sigh.

 

The castle had never seemed this vast and cold the other times they walked together through its maze of corridors and hallways. This was nothing like the two of them used to be, Anna thought, her hand resting on his bicep out of custom and politeness. He looked a bit like the first time he went there, with the slouched shoulders and wary glances of an abandoned orphan stepping into a palace. That first time, however, he'd looked up in amazement at the chandeliers and bowed a little in front of the portraits of her ancestors. He'd made her laugh, then. Today neither of them seemed to be in a laughing mood.

 

Usually, whenever they walked together, Anna would blabber about anything and everything. He didn't talk as much (she didn't leave much space for people to talk, she knew, she was trying to work on that), but he'd smile and agree on things, or add some fact that she didn't know; sometimes he'd cut her off and say she was completely wrong and they would have a mini-argument that would end with a bunch of stolen kisses behind a door.

 

This time, no words were exchanged all the way to the castle's kitchen. Not that there weren't a few at the tip of Anna's tongue — "I missed you" and "you could at least write to me once in a while to let me know you're alive" and "nice winter fur you got there", for example — but she'd take one look at him (his eyes always straight ahead) and the words would curl up in her throat and die.

 

This was doing wonders to her headache.

 

Kristoff only looked at her again when they reached the kitchen doors, and he still wouldn't say anything. She could feel him pacing behind her as she asked their head cook, Britta, to pack generous portions of their best cured cheese and meat, some pickled vegetables, and a few sandwiches for him to eat on the go. The long hair and the beard looked nice, but a hard-working man like him had no business losing weight.

 

When she closed the door and turned back to him, his hands were on his hips, shoulders straightened, jaw set. He looked resolute. The bad kind of resolute.

 

He let out a deep breath. "We need to talk."

 

"Great, I thought you were unable to do that for a minute." Anna's attempt at humor fell on deaf ears. He gestured for them to sit on a window bench.

 

Kristoff sat beside her and started twisting his hat again. He took a few more deep breaths before speaking, his voice low and quiet. "I'm sorry, but—"

 

"Stop. Stop right there," she cut him off, panic building inside her chest. "This is your chance not to say what I think you're going to say."

 

"We can't do this—"

 

"Nonono, Kristoff, don't, please..." She cut him off again, placing a hand on his lips, a gesture that may have earned her kisses on her fingertips in the past. Instead, he just pushed her hand away and put more distance between them, as if she'd crossed a line.

 

"I'm sorry, Anna. I have to." He spoke with conviction now, even as his eyes averted her again. "We can't see each other anymore."

 

Anna's heart had been frozen solid the previous summer. Had it fallen to the ground and shattered violently at the time, she guessed it would have felt more or less like it did now.

 

She had thought she'd learned what a heartbreak felt like after the Hans thing. But a lot had happened on that day — fear for her life, fear for her sister's life, anger at herself for being a fool and falling for the schemes of a sociopath. Heartbreak? She'd known Hans for a day. And, well, he _was_ a sociopath — it was a good thing it had never gone much further with him. But when it was a genuinely good guy, one you'd spent half a year getting to know, one even your very wise and very rational older sister teased you about, a guy who made you want to be a better person and always checked if you were comfortable when he touched you and who'd introduced you to his _family_ , for goodness sake _..._ heartbreak was _this_  guy breaking up with you, not the sociopath.

 

She looked down at her knees and bit her lower lip to stop it from trembling. She was not going to cry. Ok, she was going to cry, but before that there were a few words she had to spit at him, and she wouldn't be able to do that if she were crying. First on the list was: "Why?"

 

"I think the reason is fairly obvious," he mumbled, like a coward.

 

"It's not obvious to me. I want to hear it in your words." Her rhetoric tutor would have been proud of her for managing to keep her voice steady.

 

"You are a princess. And I'm a nothing." Oh, of course. The elephant in the room. The classical problem. The one she, no, _they_ had been carefully sidestepping so far. _That_ reason. "I'm not even sure if this is legal."

 

"Don't you think my sister would have said something if it wasn't?" Her eyes were welling up with tears, but she was going to get this stuff off her chest, oh, yes, she would.

 

"She never said she _approves_ of it, either." He looked at her briefly, and she wondered if this was why he'd wanted to see Elsa first. Maybe he had asked for her hand and Elsa had said no. Maybe she was aiming her anger at the wrong person. He turned his attention back to his hat. "Look, neither of you has enjoyed youth all that much. Maybe she just wanted you to have some fun before you—"

 

" _Fun_?" Oh, no, her anger was aimed _just fine_. "Is that what you think you are? Some  _toy_  for me to use? Why, thank you, Kristoff, what a great image you have of me." She crossed her arms and huffed. A vein was throbbing at her temple, and she imagined it bursting out and drenching him in her raging blood.

 

"That's not—I—that's _not_  what I meant. I'm sorry. I just..." He let out another deep sigh, rubbing his face with both hands. He held his breath, pressed his eyes, swallowed hard. Scratched his beard. Stared at the parquet flooring, seeming at a loss.

 

How dared he look so vulnerable and handsome in a time like this. Really, how dared he.

 

"The truth is, I hate myself for doing this, but we can't…" His mouth turned into a thin line as he sniffed and blinked, and Anna's anger simmered down against her will. He took another deep breath, steeling himself. When he looked at her again and held her hands, the several tiny pieces of her shattered heart melted inside her chest. "Your life is full of balls and castles and ice magic and true love's kisses. My whole life has been cutting ice all winter and hoping I can stretch the summer pay through the rest of the year. It's daily grind, and sweat, and my clothes are always kind of damp." She thought everything he was saying was reindeer shit, but did he have to look like a kicked puppy while he said it? "You live in a fairy tale, Anna. All I know is the real world."

 

"You were raised by trolls."

 

"Yes, well, they were _working class_ trolls, ok?" He spluttered, letting go of her hands. She wished they could just laugh it all off and kiss those tears away, and she wondered what his beard would feel like against her face, but he was _still talking_. "What I mean is I'm just not cut for palace life—"

 

"We elope," she blurted so suddenly it took him a moment to process it.

 

" _What_ ," he exclaimed with an undignified snort.

 

"I renounce my right to the throne. If we run away, they won't be able to do anything about it." She regretted each word as it left her mouth. It was a terrible plan — it was not a plan at all, in fact. From the way he shook his head, she knew she was about to get an earful, and this time it would not end with kissing behind a door.

 

"Are you _listening_  to yourself right now?" She was tempted to challenge him for speaking to someone of her standing with that tone, but, you know, not a good moment. "Don't you ever think about the consequences of your actions?"

 

He'd seemed to _like_ that about her when they were rolling in the hay back in October, but she kept that to herself, too. "We can deal with the consequences.  _I_  can deal with the consequences."

 

"Oh, can you? Can Elsa?" Oh, boy. This was going to hurt. "You two are the last living members of the house of Arendelle. Elsa had barely warmed the throne and Weaseltown—" _Weselton_ , she corrected him, "whatever, they and that... sorry excuse for a prince _you got engaged to_ were already aiming for her head. But I guess you think she'll have it much easier on her own."

 

Why did he have to be so... _right_ about everything all the time, she thought, and _now_  her throat got stuffed and the tears refused to stay within her eyelids any longer.

 

"'We elope.' Awesome idea. Run away with a guy you met last summer. Throw your own life into the wind and your sister into the pit of snakes." It was cruel of him to twist the knife when she was already a sobbing mess of shame and grief and regret, but the worst part was, she knew he meant well. It was not the cruelty of a sociopath, but one that came from a place of care. It was the same care that had made her scream at Elsa for pushing her away without so much as giving her a reason; the same care that had made Elsa create a giant snow bodyguard to scare them away from her deadly powers. "The Anna I know used her dying breaths to throw herself in front of a sword for her sister. Don't change because of me."

 

There was very little she could to articulate now that the floodgates were open. "But I—" She hiccupped, gulped, sniffled, a horrible mess of a woman with her shattered-melted heart all over the place. "I love you."

 

His fingers reached for hers. She could barely look at him, her whole world an underwater tragedy. "I love you, too." He squeezed her hand and let go. "That is why I must think of what is best for you."

 

"That would be _you_ ," she whimpered pathetically.

 

He clicked his tongue and huffed. He was probably fed up with her at this point. She was, too, but she didn't have the option of breaking up with herself. "I'm not—"

 

Whatever silliness he was about to say about not being worthy of her was interrupted by the kitchen doors opening and Britta sticking her head out. "Excuse me... oh." The cook's cheerful face fell as she looked at Anna, then Kristoff. She tried to keep an appearance of normality, but Anna knew they would be the topic of the day among the servants. No, the topic of the week. "I was wondering if... Mr. Bjorgman would like some pie?"

 

Kristoff was an apology incarnate. "It's ok, please don't—"

 

"Yes, please, Britta, some pie would be wonderful." It was Anna's good friend, anger, that kept her voice firm and perky despite her puffy eyes and drenched cheeks.

 

Once the door was closed, he had the audacity of letting out a nervous laugh. "She'll spit on that pie, you know."

 

"I hope she does," Anna said, with absolute sincerity. If he was going to make her feel like this, the least he could expect was for the castle servants to take her side. She would never tell any of them to do actual bodily harm to him, sure, but giving him the stink eye? Hell, that was par for the course. "And you share food with Sven. _Don't act like you_ _care_."

 

She had meant that last part as a joke. She hadn't even _meant_ it as anything, really.

 

He took his deepest breath yet and furrowed his eyebrows, gaze fixed on the floor. The woolen hat was scrunched so tightly in his hand, his knuckles turned white. He pressed his other hand, closed into a fist, against his mouth; squeezed his eyes shut, sniffed hard, then got up in a swift, desperate motion.

 

"I should—I should go." That was the sound of Kristoff's very own floodgates breaking down, Anna noticed with a mix of vengeance and concern.

 

"Kristoff," she called, hurrying after him and hugging him from behind. He hesitated for a moment — maybe afraid of indulging her, maybe afraid of indulging himself — but finally turned and put his trembling arms around her as well, holding her so tight she thought she might break. The tears ran freely down Anna's face, Kristoff's chest shaking in quiet sobs as he breathed apologies into her hair.

 

At last she found her breath again. She looked up at him; he wiped his own tears, then rubbed his thumb tenderly against her cheek. She held his wrist and laid a kiss on his palm, then looked up into his eyes through dark, damp eyelashes.

 

He pressed his lips against hers in a hungry kiss, one hand finding its way into her hair as his other arm almost lifted her off the floor by the waist; she raised herself on tiptoes against him, her nails scratching his nape and digging into the thick wool of his sweater. His beard was rough against her cheeks and chin, but she didn't mind, she'd let him skin her whole face off if it meant having him kiss her like this again, every day, forever.

 

The kiss was broken by the sound of the kitchen door being opened, but whoever did it went back inside to offer them one last moment of privacy. Anna curled up into his arms, breathing in the vague scents of wood, male sweat and reindeer fur that always seemed to linger in everything he had. Of all things, she never thought she'd miss the funny smell of his clothes.

 

She looked up with a sniffle. "Kristoff?" He ran a hand over her hair, trying to fix the mess he'd made on her left braid. "If... after they marry me off to some horribly boring prince... and if you're still single, of course... we could have a secret affair."

 

He snickered, shaking his head and pulling her back into the hug. "You're reading too many books." He kissed her forehead and pulled back to look into her eyes, caressing her cheek. "You'll be happy. No need for affairs."

 

The kitchen door opened again; they'd had enough time. Kristoff stepped away from Anna's embrace, his eyes turned to the floor. He humbly accepted the huge food basket from Britta's hands, muttered "I'm so sorry for all this", shot Anna one last lingering look, and left.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Elsa-heavy, Snow Sisters-heavy chapter that explores what's been going on politically in Arendelle since the Thaw.

Elsa paused in front of Anna's bedroom door, her hand hovering over the doorknob. The day had been terrible so far, and only seemed to be getting worse.

 

First, the meeting with Kristoff had confirmed an issue she had already observed from his ice trade reports: the current winter was warmer than in previous years, just when she was relying on the ice harvesting industry boom to hold up Arendelle's economy until spring. The kingdom's farms had yielded subpar crops that year, after the midsummer snow ravaged the fields; they hadn't had to rely this much on food imports since her great-grandmother's time on the throne. That, plus the costs of widespread infrastructural damage (an entire wing of the castle had been condemned by the royal engineers), was bleeding the treasury dry.

 

Then there was the question of the Council of Dukes. The oldest one, the Duke of Kollsvein, and the two youngest, the Dukes of Alsfjord and Oss, had graciously transferred their authority to the newly-crowned Queen, as was expected of them under the Regency Acts. The Dukes of Osten and Alesdal, however, hadn't been as gracious about it. Ruling the kingdom for three years seemed to have gone up to their heads, and Elsa had only luck (and maybe a push from the archbishop, who threatened to excommunicate them all) to thank for keeping them on her side. Alesdal was her main concern, since they held the key to the country's ice business. But the Queen could literally _control_  ice, and the Duke of Alesdal seemed to respect that to some extent. The Duke of Osten, on the other hand... well, even the other council members found him unpleasant, and his insistence that they should resume trade with Weselton bordered on treason. Elsa had to find a way to put the man in his place, lest he put the crown in danger.

 

Speaking of danger to the crown, the pro-Republican folks had been causing trouble, according to the guard reports. Yes, their numbers were negligible, and their influence even more so — in general, the people of Arendelle loved the royal family and were happy to have a benevolent queen who promoted peace and freedom of thought. But Elsa had learned her World History; the French hadn't guillotined their monarchs overnight. One didn't have to go far: she just had to take a look at their southern neighbors, whose giant mess of a succession line was already fueling anti-crown sentiments. A financial crisis on the first year of her reign could turn the population against her, and that was the last thing she needed right now.

 

No, the last think she needed _right now_  was to watch her sister suffer from a broken heart again.

 

Elsa had spent all day from meeting to meeting, barely leaving her office — she had a sandwich sent there for lunch, much to Kai's dismay — and so had not seen Anna at all. It was only by dinnertime, when she noticed her sister's absence at the table, that the kitchen servants informed her of what had happened. This brought her to where she was now, hesitating outside Anna's bedroom.

 

A food tray laid untouched on a console nearby. Elsa checked the tea; a ring of precipitate sat on the bottom of the cup. She knew from experience that Gerda would not have given up easily. That meant either Anna had pushed her away, or the door was locked.

 

Elsa finally gathered the courage to touch the brass doorknob, noticing with a mixture of relief and confusion that no frost formed under her naked hand. She turned the knob and the door opened with a soft click.

 

Inside, it was chaos. Anna was not the tidiest princess Arendelle had ever seen, but her usual messes were easily containable by a few visits of her handmaids over the course of a day. She must have sent them all away before they could touch anything.

 

Elsa closed the door behind her. The surfaces of Anna's vanity, chest of drawers and bureau were empty, their contents strewn all over the floor. She followed with her eyes a long trail of clothes: it started near the door, drew a bee-line to the washbasin on the other side of the room, and ended by the foot of the four-poster bed. There laid Anna, under the low light of an oil lamp on the side table, body folded into a ball under the blankets.

 

Elsa let out a sigh.

 

Stepping carefully not to crush anything under her feet, she walked towards the bed, collecting things along the way. A bodice; a broken bottle of Eau de Cologne that had thankfully been almost empty; the romance novel Anna had been reading the day before, its pages creased where it fell open; a china doll whose porcelain face had been destroyed in a very intentional manner.

 

"She was looking funny at me." Elsa jumped at Anna's rough voice, almost dropping the items back on the floor. She laid them gently on a nearby chair then sat on the bed.

 

Her sister was looking at her out of the corner of her eyes, her face still puffy from crying. Elsa reached out a hand and pushed a strand of hair off Anna's face.

 

"The girls in the kitchen are all worried about you," Elsa started. "Talk to me?"

 

Anna released a long, shaky breath. She looked down at her hands, worrying her lower lip and frowning.

 

"I _hate_ him," she let out at last in a tiny voice. "I  _wish_ I hated him," she corrected herself, tears gathering in her eyes again.

 

"Oh, sweetie," Elsa whispered, sitting closer to her and running a hand on her back.

 

Anna curled up around her, speaking between sobs. "He said he _loved_ me! Can you believe this? He had the _nerve_ to say he was b-breaking up with me _because_  he loved me. And then he cried!, like the big, stupid baby that he is." She sniffled and wiped her nose on the cuff of her nightgown, wailing, "Why did he have to do this to us?"

 

Elsa pulled her hand away while Anna sobbed into the pillow, made sure her palms were still warm, then resumed rubbing her sister's back.

 

Anna sniffled a few more times, then whispered somberly, her eyes lost ahead: "I swear I'm never letting another man get anywhere near me again."

 

The tone of her voice filled Elsa with dread. She had been trying to grow closer to Anna, to deserve her trust again, but the kingdom seemed to consume her mind more often than not. She knew there were things her sister wasn't sharing — things, perhaps, that she should be sharing, and that perhaps she didn't feel were safe to share. "Anna..." Elsa continued to caress her back, trying her best to sound supportive, not reproachful. "Yesterday, when you said your virtue was intact—"

 

Anna sat up with a jolt. "It is! _Unfortunately!_ " She exclaimed. "Maybe if I were  _disgraced_  and no longer the highest prize of Arendelle," _second highest_ , Elsa thought to herself bitterly, "everyone would stop trying to find me a _better husband_. Maybe that fool would feel _obliged_  to marry me to save my honor or whatever. Or maybe not, and you'd arrest him, and then I'd spend the rest of my life as a miserable spinster because I'd still prefer that to marrying someone else." She snuffled loudly, rubbing the tears off her face and shaking her head. "No, my _virtue_ is intact. My heart is in pieces, but I guess that doesn't matter to the Council of Dukes, or..."

 

"It matters to me." The Council of Dukes, on the other hand, would probably be relieved to hear the princess would no longer be seen frolicking around with a _servant_. They had made their dissatisfaction with Anna's choice of company known quite a few times, but Elsa had always changed the subject. The heir to the throne deciding to marry a commoner wouldn't exactly make her life easier, she knew. She just thought they would reach some sort of compromise when the time arrived. "I think this was my fault."

 

Anna huffed, wiping tears off her cheeks with the heel of her hand. "Gosh, stop thinking that everything is your fault. How could this be your fault?"

 

Elsa took a deep breath. After the Thaw, they had agreed not to hide things from each other again. It didn't mean opening up was _easy._ "After our talk yesterday, I got worried. So when he showed up this morning requesting an audience, I took the opportunity to... ask his intentions. I told him if he wasn't going to make his courtship official, I would have to intervene." She blurted that last part, hurrying to get it off her chest. "Maybe he thought I didn't approve."

 

Anna glared at her for an agonizing minute, but at least she wasn't shivering and no snowflakes were falling from the ceiling.

 

"It wasn't your fault," Anna grudgingly conceded. "I mean, he probably panicked because you pressured him, and I _am_ mad that you didn't talk to me first. But if you hadn't done it, he would probably just... hide in the mountains and wait until I gave up on him." She sighed and shrugged. "So it was for the best that you did."

 

Anna's shy smile put Elsa's heart at ease. They should keep up with this "open doors" approach, she decided. With one less worry to eat at her, maybe she would actually be able to sleep that night.

 

"Come here, little sis'." She extended an arm and gestured for Anna to sit closer. Anna shuffled in bed and hugged Elsa's side, resting her head on her shoulder. Elsa returned the hug without fear of freezing her sister again. "I wish mom was here," she sighed.

 

"I wish mom was here, too," said Anna. "She should be the one giving romantic advice to us both." Their mother had been known in the European courts as "the difficult one". Princess Idunn had rejected no less than 34 suitors before giving their father the benefit of the doubt, and even then, he had to woo her for a whole year until she agreed on a wedding date. If she had been there, Elsa was sure the whole Hans fiasco would never have happened. (Well, if their mother hadn't died, there would have been no coronation to begin with. They would probably still be locked in the castle, protected from the evils and joys of the outside world.) "But I'm glad you're here for me," Anna whispered, tightening her hold around Elsa's waist.

 

"And I'm glad I can be here for you." Elsa brushed her bangs aside and kissed her forehead. They had each other now; they would be fine. "I'm going to the ice harvesting fields tomorrow morning."

 

Anna let go of her, alarmed. "Elsa, you don't have to..."

 

"No, I mean, I have to go," Elsa interrupted her with a little laugh, realizing she didn't know the rest of her conversation with Kristoff that morning. "The harvesters are having problems. That was why he came to see me."

 

"Oh." Anna seemed equal parts relieved and frustrated. She raised her eyebrows briefly and sighed, lost in thought, then returned her attention to Elsa, the fire in her eyes renewed at last. "Well, if you find him, please freeze his pants."

 

Elsa chuckled, glad to see her sister back to her usual self. "I'll see what I can do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I hesitated a bit while writing this chapter because Anna bawling her eyes out after a break-up seemed out of character — we barely see her crying after her parents died, after all. But then I thought, you know what? Homegirl has taken enough suffering in her life with a straight face. She could use a good cry. It's therapeutic, and also she's hormonal. #letAnnacry2k18
> 
> All the place names were made up with the help of www.fantasynamegenerators.com (specifically, North European and Viking town name generators). Readers of my other stories will notice I really liked the name Kollsvein — in my personal headcanon I have established it as the northernmost province of Arendelle, roughly corresponding to Troms or Finnmark in Norway. I'm guessing the capital of Arendelle is also called Arendelle, with the city where the castle is possibly being a very creative "City of Arendelle", because let's face it, that's how people often name places in real life. We as a species just love to make things confusing for foreigners.


End file.
